canned food after the expiration date - canned beef

[opsec]

I cleaned out my closet and I've begun a project of rotating my canned foods. For dinner tonight I am cracking into 3 cans of canned beef. Expiration date is 12/14/2008. Everything smells and tastes ok. So now I have empiricle proof about expiration dates.

[Eddie]

Not so fast.....

Wait an hour after you eat it, then tell us how you feel.

[Mike]

That's the spirit Opsec!  I wouldn't hesitate two each 2 years past pull-date canned food.

For me, 'taking out the garbage' means taking the past pull-date cans out of the garbage and restocking the shelves before taing the garbage to the curb.

[opsec]

Ok. It's three and a half hours later. I've had time to digest, I've been to the gym, and I feel fine. I know, some of you lost money betting that I would suddenly stop posting.

[darkdwarf]

But I still have money riding on wheather or not you grow a third arm from your forehead.

[opsec]

You lose. I only have a second head growing out of my shoulders.

[offdalip]

spam or hormel or dinty moore's???

[opsec]

None of the above. This is the Kirkland brand from Costco. The label says it's a product of Brazil.

[Beeherder]

Home canned foods are known to be edible a century after they were canned. Edible means it won't kill you not that it will nourish you. I too don't hesitate to eat canned goods a year or two beyond the expiration date, but this past year i decided that all my expired canned goods can go to the Food Bank and then i restock and rotate. This year I'll be sending more produce from my gardens to the Food Bank as well. Hey, you can only eat so much lettuce and it doesn't keep so things like that can be shared readily with neighbors, known and unknown.

Abundant quality food supplies is my goal now but when i started the cache i was more interested in lower costs. So now as things expire or get used i replace them with better quality foods. My new guideline is Michael Pollan's guide, to paraphrase: anything with more than 5 ingredients is not food, its a foodlike substance. Eat only real food.

my purchase priorities:
local organic or better,
local grown is better than far away organic,
know your farmer

[offdalip]

asked cause even some of the non expired stuff is barely edible to my cast iron stomach.

I got canned chicken breast stored and tuna and salmon

[Beeherder]

had canned chicken breast  in the cache until i opened one. yeck! all salt no flavor, the rest of the bulk pack stack of cans went to the local food bank. Just can't eat it anymore, the industrial crap i mean. Now i try to buy only organic and mostly dry goods for long term storage and getting to know the local meat producers for turkey, chicken, beef and mutton has been both healthy and rewarding. Not cheap but rewarding. YMMV, but if you live in farm country why not get to know a local producer?

[offdalip]

thats why I asked, alot of that long term meat beef stuff was almost inedible due to taste not due to contamination

if u r starving u will it it tho I bet

[opsec]

Ok, next item. Member's Mark brand premium chunk chicken breast. 50 oz. can. Expiration date 10/06/2009. Only seven months out of date. I don't expect anything negative to report.

So far, no discoloration, no off odors. Tastes like...chicken. Although spice is a necessity. Right now I'm using Blair's Original Death Sauce with Chipotle: http://firegirl.com/blairs-original-death-sauce-20-20-with-chipotle.html The website gives it a heat rating of 6, but I'm not that impressed with it. I'm using too much sauce to get the right level of burn. I want more bang for my buck. I need something that will last a long time. I could go through a bottle of this in mere weeks. Several years ago I tried the "Da' Bomb Ground Zero" sauce. I'll never buy that again. It was truely painful. The search goes on for a happy medium.

[darwinslair]

I make my own.  I use Polish Cyclon peppers.  Nice heat and taste.  I simply collect the peppers, put them in a zip-loc in the bottom of my fridge and wait for them to collapse.  Then I liquify them in a blender, add vinegar, honey, garlic and onion, cook to the consistancy I want, and bottle it.

So far as I know it lasts forever, because a bottle a year old is doing fine.

Tom

[opsec]

If you have another bottle of that around, what would you take in trade for it?